Chapter Fifty-Five:
Jin crossed her arms against her chest.
With a bubbling hiss, the coffee maker on the counter began to percolate. Its brushed steel casing mottled with stains, dark brown drips trailed down from it to the counter, itself a disaster of spilled creamer and spent packets of sugar. The chaos ended at an overflowing waste bin heaped with discarded paper cups and stinking of stale coffee.
She scowled at the mess. Somewhere deep inside, she knew it was all a metaphor.
And she hated metaphors.
Behind her, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Headquarters bustled. Excited shouting mixed with the blaring intercom, assaulting her ears. Yet their constant presence for the last few days had slowly inured her to their abrasiveness. And besides that, it wasn't the worst thing happening to the air. As pungent as the coffee, the detective bullpen reeked of spoiled takeout and a medley of body odors, exacerbated by the summer heatwave. She gave her blouse a light sniff and wrinkled her nose. Even she, a woman who prided herself on professionalism, could use a shower.
Beginning with the collapsing parking structure near a yakuza nightclub and continuing with an ongoing gang war, the week had been a whirlwind for the police. And as she watched the coffee trickle into the carafe, she was thankful that she wasn't a member of the organized crime division who hadn't seen this nightmare coming.
Outbreaks of violence peppered the city, heaviest in Marunouchi and in the poorer neighborhoods near Namidabashi where the yakuza often leaned the hardest. In that time, a few revelations had rippled through the police force, starting with the secret consolidation of the yakuza clans under one family and that their beleaguered oyabun was a woman. A foreign woman.
She sighed. Perhaps if a detective of her caliber had been in the organized crime division, it wouldn't have taken them so long to figure out the change in leadership.
The flow of coffee into the carafe slowed to a drip, and she removed it from the warmer and filled her travel mug.
However, her real case to solve was the mystery of her disappearing partner, Inspector Nakagawa.
For a detective who always seemed to show up when she least cared for his presence, he'd been missing for days. Calls and texts to him went unanswered, but they were still going through, which meant his cellphone wasn't dead, and after almost a week, that became proof he was alive enough to charge the battery. Reflecting on how long it had been, she realized that she hadn't even seen him at the ruins of the parking structure, surprising considering his heated defense of the Demon of Namidabashi weeks ago in the shipping yard.
She frowned at the name. An alias for a man who in her opinion was just as much a criminal as the yakuza trash he beat up. The city was prone to enough chaos without adding the antics of a vigilante, one who assaulted the police and fouled up crime scenes.
Absently, she perused the ransacked selection of creamers and sweeteners.
Considering the vigilante's disregard for law and order, she still didn't understand why Nakagawa, as a detective, didn't see him for the criminal he was. Afterall, the metropolitan police force was more than capable of handling the problems besieging their city, and they certainly didn't need some weirdo in a mask making them worse.
Finding nothing to her taste, she left her coffee black and screwed the lid onto her flask.
She chuckled to herself. Maybe he had decided to give up detective work and become a vigilante himself. The Masked Fedora or something dumb like that.
With her flask in hand, she turned on her heel, and her jaw dropped.
Across the haphazard arrangement of desks, she spied Nakagawa. With his coat slung over the back of his duct-taped chair, he stooped at his desk, rifling through its drawers. Objects clanged as he sifted through the contents, mumbling under his breath.
She wove across the room, her heels clacking.
"Nakagawa!" she called out to him, surprised by the worry wavering her voice.
He jumped, stumbling into his chair and sending it rolling into another desk. "Fumiko, you scared me!"
"For one," she chided with a hand on her hip, "Don't call me by my first name. And secondly, where have you been? It's been days and the city has gone to hell."
"I know… I just—"
"You didn't reply to my texts or call me back."
"I'm sorry. That was rude of me…"
She nodded, appraising his apology, and satisfied with its beginning.
His attention gravitated back to his desk drawer and he started picking through it again. "…But I really don't have the time to explain, so I promise I'll make it up to you later."
And his apology had started off so well.
"No, you're going to explain it to me right now," she insisted.
"I can't," he replied, waving her off.
"Why not?"
"Look, just go back to drinking your coffee and being the first at crime scenes."
Her eyes narrowed into a glare and she slammed his desk drawer closed.
He yipped, barely yanking his fingers away in time.
"Fumiko!" he growled, hitting the desk. "I don't have time for your bruised ego… Or your apparent concern over my wellbeing as potential husband material."
She gasped with rage.
"I need to find my radio," he muttered, ignoring her. Then his eyes brightened, and he swept a messy pile of papers aside, revealing a black, handheld radio. "All right!"
He flipped on the power switch and turned the dial, adjusting the frequency. The flat drawl of air traffic control crackled through the speakers.
"Are you on the aerial support frequency?" she asked, her anger tempered by confusion.
He held up a finger, shushing her, and then pressed the talk button. "Tokyo-One-Alpha? This is Metro-Ground."
He released the button and waited.
Another voice replied, the sound of rhythmic whipping in the background. "Tokyo-One-Alpha here."
He pressed the button again. "What's your ETA for shift change?"
"We've just finished refueling and should be arriving at the downtown helipad in ten minutes."
He smiled with relief. "There's an update to the manifest. Inspector Nakagawa will be joining the next patrol."
There was a long pause filled with empty static.
He swallowed.
"Roger. Tokyo-One-Alpha out."
He clicked the radio off.
"What are you doing?" she asked coldly. "We're not on assignment with the aerial patrols. The chief inspector has us on the ground overseeing checkpoints and leading investigations into contained skirmishes."
He picked up his coat. "That's babysitting and clean-up duty. This is more important than that."
"More important? You're violating orders."
He smirked. "Actually, I was missing before this whole gang war started, so I was never here to receive orders and thus, I can't violate them."
"The chief inspector isn't going to care about semantics when he reprimands you. You could lose your badge."
"Then I lose my badge."
She shook her head, stunned.
Taking advantage of her shock, he turned to slip past her, his eyes on the elevator. But as he took a step, she grabbed his arm, her nails digging in.
"I don't understand," she said, staring at him. "What are you willing to throw your entire career away for?"
Grizzled with stubble, his face warmed with a genuine smile. "Gods are about to clash, and if I can help one side prevail over the other. If I can give our guy even the slightest edge, I have to do it. Millions of lives are counting on me."
"Our guy?" she muttered.
He covered her hand with his own and gave her a gentle squeeze. "I have to go. He needs me."
"He needs you?" she repeated, and then her expression sharpened. "You're talking about the demon, aren't you? The Demon of Namidabashi?"
"Uh…" he hedged.
"Dammit," she groaned. "You're allying yourself with a vigilante? He's as bad as the yakuza. Breaking and entering. Assaulting police officers. Property destruction. Racketeering. Arson."
"I mean… yeah, but…"
"You've gone insane."
He sighed. "Any other time, I'd agree with you. But he's not the only superpowered person out there. The Shikai oyabun isn't human. Our forces are struggling against a bunch of assholes with assault rifles. What's going to happen to them when they face a kirin?"
"A kirin?"
"I know. I know. It's like you said. Insanity. But that parking garage didn't collapse because of a regular fistfight. If getting the demon some aerial support will make a difference. If it means saving lives, civilian and police, then I'm going to do it. My career be damned."
She stared at him, her mouth slack.
"Fumiko?"
Her jaw clenched and her lips pressed into a thin line. Still gripping him like iron, she twisted his wrist.
"Ow, hey!" he yelped.
He struggled against her as she wrenched his arm behind his back and in a scuffle of shoes, she threw her hips into him, pinning him against his desk. Desperately, he reached with his free hand, grabbing the desktop to keep from falling. The jangle of handcuffs followed.
"Are you arresting me?!" he exclaimed.
"It's for your own good," she replied icily and with a snap, the cuff latched onto his wrist.
"My own good?!"
She yanked his other arm back and he plunged forward, his face slamming onto his desktop in a plume of flying papers.
"And you were calling me insane!" he growled as he tried to regain his balance.
"This isn't insanity," she said, slapping the second cuff onto his wrist with a ratcheting click. "This is keeping you from getting into anymore trouble than you're already in."
"Thanks for looking out for me," he spat sarcastically, wrestling against her hold, "But I don't have time to play this game with you! I have to go!"
"We have to go," she corrected, and she grabbed the nape of his vest and hauled him upright. "You were going to use aerial support to meet up with the demon? Sounds like the perfect time for us to arrest him. Maybe then the chief inspector will look the other way despite your antics for the last few days."
She swung him towards the elevator, and he pushed back against her, grappling for control with only his height as leverage. Gritting her teeth, she thrust him forward, one embattled step at a time. Around them, the bullpen continued to bustle with men and women hurrying to their assignments, heedless of anything else.
"Why is no one noticing you arresting me?" he asked between grunts as he fought her.
"I think the better question is why aren't you yelling for their help?"
He sighed.
"That's what I thought."
With a final push, she shoved him into the waiting elevator car. Following him in, she punched the button for roof access.
He slumped against the rear wall of the elevator. "Fumiko—"
She held up a finger, silencing him.
And the elevator doors closed.
OOOOOOOOOO
With their leather-soled shoes slapping hardwood, a team of men rushed down the hallway. The muraled walls few past them as they ran, their eyes following the gleam shed by incandescent light. Then one of them slowed. Something in the gleam had caught his attention. It was hard to see. Faint wear along a seam in the painting and scuffs spoiling the buffed floor. For most, they were innocuous details meant to be missed. For him, they were the signs they were searching for.
The others slid to surround him as he approached the wall, his fingers fluttering down the seam he'd spied. And when he found the hidden handle, he grinned cruelly and wrenched the secret door open. Behind him, the others waited, their pistols racked and ready.
But only lavishly decorated emptiness awaited them. And the endless cityscape through the bay of windows.
Growling with disappointment, they moved on, hunting for another seam. For more scuffs on the floor. The Kuro-Sakura's former oyabun, Kurosawa Raiden, had called them to arms, revealing the lies their clan had told. A foreign woman led them, her rule an affront to their generational traditions founded on fraternal bonds. And moreover, she harbored their enemy, offering her sanctuary when she should be killed as a lesson to those who oppose them, especially at the expense of the demon.
They could stand for none of it and through their bloody coup, they would make it right. Though they were Shikai, they'd make Kurosawa their oyabun. He deserved their castle from which to reign.
Another seam.
Another scuff.
They crowded around the wall, their winded breathing raspy. Fingers probed, searching for the handle and when they found it, they unlocked it with a soft click. The door glided down the track and inside they discovered a scowling Ishida laid up in bed. Flanking him on either side, waited two women in kimonos, their finery dyed in their clan's colors.
Menacing sneers spread across their lips.
One of them was the one they wanted, but they would take them both to be sure.
Then the icy nip of a winter morning blew through them, stealing their twisted elation. Their teeth chattered and fingers numbed, and as they exhaled a gasp, their breath fogged the air. Before them, they saw bodies sunk in the snow. Yet before they could think, they blinked, and the snow evaporated, leaving the bodies behind. They were their Shikai brothers, strewn amid broken furniture and shattered vases, their painful wheezing the only sign of life.
With her bare feet propped up on a pile two men deep, a woman with dark skin and burning, opalescent eyes watched them from the comfort of an armchair. In her hand, she swirled a glass of merlot before taking a sip.
The men shifted nervously.
"Leave your guns and go back the way you came, traitors," Oya ordered, her look the embodiment of regal dispassion, "And I will permit you to escape for today. Do otherwise and you will share your brethren's fate."
The men eyed each other, their guns suddenly heavy in their hands. There was no mistaking her. She was the foreign impostor from the video. A girl playing at being their father. And yet…
Along a shadowy tree line, a predator watched them, eyes aglow with opalescent fire.
With a heavy thud, a gun struck the floor. A man at the rear of the team disappeared, his footfalls echoing down the hall as he ran.
A few others took a step back, tempted.
"What of your pride?" the man at the fore snarled at them, his rage twisting his face. "We're reclaiming our clan. Taking back what's ours from this foreigner and instead, you're cowering before her? You dishonor yourselves."
Indignant, she observed him and waited.
"She's nothing compared to us," he added coldly, bringing his gun to bear on her. "She's not our oyabun. She's not our family. She has no right to be here leading us."
Closing her eyes, she breathed in deeply through her nose and with a note of sadness, she replied. "Everyone is always a disappointment."
The gun barked, rupturing the air with a deafening crack.
Cotton exploded from the back of the armchair, its seat empty.
The man inhaled expensive perfume mixed with the earthy scent of merlot. She stood beside him, looming even though she was shorter. Illuminating his face, her bright glare penetrated him, stealing his resolve and setting him trembling.
Deliberately, she leaned in and spoke into his ear, "You should have accepted my grace."
Then she was a blur of motion, plucking guns from their hands and crumpling them as if they were toys. The glass of wine sloshed but never spilled, cradled gently as she cracked their ribs and broke their jaws with open-handed blows. Most collapsed senseless, unconscious bliss striking them faster than agony. But a special few hit the ground awake, sputtering as they groaned and clasped at their sides.
The first man remained, untouched, his body still trembling.
Reveling in his fear, she sneered and started to circle him.
Closing his eyes, he swallowed, finding his nerve.
"It doesn't matter," he whispered.
"What doesn't matter?" she asked, taking another sip from her glass.
"You."
Her sneer sobered to a scowl.
"You're a monster," he continued, clenching his fists. "An abomination. And whether or not we die today, we've still won. You've been ousted and our honor is intact, because no one will follow you ever again."
Her eyes narrowed and a wintry gale blew through him.
"So, keep your empty castle," he stuttered through chattering teeth. "We're your family no more. We never were."
Her wine glass rang out brightly as it struck the floor, shattering.
"Oya-sama!" Ishida shouted.
She reached out, grabbing the man by his collar. The floor slipped away from his scrabbling feet as she hauled him up into the air. Prying at her fingers, he struggled uselessly against her iron grip.
Her rage panned to the rippling tarp covering the broken window.
"Oya-sama!" Ishida shouted again, his hand fumbling with his bedrail. "Wait!"
"If none of you were ever my family…" she snarled.
"Oya-sama!"
"…Then you can leave my home."
The man flew. His body ripped the tarp from its mooring as he shot through the window. The plastic wrapped around him, and together, they disappeared from sight. Then his screaming began.
Her chest heaving, she listened to his terror.
Until it stopped with a grunt.
Frowning, she approached the gaping window.
Standing tall on the side of the tower below, the demon stared up at her, his eyes molten fire. Over his shoulder, he bore the man tangled in the tarp who muttered prayers. With a hard stomp, he shattered a window. Shimmering shards fell towards the hazy ground in the distance. Keeping his attention on her, the demon blindly tossed the man through the jagged opening, a generous reprieve from a far worse fate.
Power poured from her, swirling about her and catching her braids.
And she stepped through the gaping window, her weightless body orienting as she walked out onto the face of her castle to meet her foe.